There are so many different options when it comes to web hosting out there that beginners would instantly get overwhelmed.
Sure, you might have keyed in “best website hosting companies” and have found quite a number of them, but how exactly do you choose the best one for you?
Well, that will depend on your exact needs. Today, I am going to talk about the different web hosting services out there so that you will be aware of the differences, as well as which one is right for your use-case.
Shared Web Hosting
The idea of shared web hosting is that your website will be placed inside a server along with the other websites that are serviced by the provider. A hosting provider will usually use a control panel to help you manage the services that are inherent in such. For instance, you can manage your website’s proprietary email client, as well as making changes in MySQL.
This is the most common type of hosting service out there because it is the cheapest. Although, security is not a strong suit on this variant.
Reseller Web Hosting
Basically, a reseller web hosting service is where you will be given a special account that doles out shared hosting services to others. In other words, you will become a partner of a particular company in the sense that you will be handling their service to others, for a fee of course.
Virtual Private Servers
The problem with shared web hosting is that the resources that are available to you will entirely depend on the resources that are used (or not used) by the other websites on the same server.
If you need more resources but still want to maintain a relatively affordable web hosting service, then you might want to consider getting a VPS hosting service instead.
With the use of virtual machines– creating a simulation of a server computer, albeit still within the same server- you are given your own set of resources that only you can use.
Dedicated Servers
With VPS hosting, you are still using the same server as others. With Dedicated hosting, however, you will be given your very own server computer, which means that all of the physical resources will be allotted for your usage. Keep in mind, this is quite an expensive plan to take.
Colocation
Although not entirely a hosting provider, colocation services will provide the space, bandwidth, and power that is necessary to run your server. You will still need to purchase a separate server, however, and this computer will be given to the colocation provider.
Clustered Hosting
This is not normally offered by web hosting providers, but I would still talk about them. The reason why you’ve probably never heard of clustered hosting services is due to the fact that they are quite expensive (even more expensive than getting dedicated servers).
Usually, the provider runs multiple servers and each of them will have specific roles. For example, one server will handle all of the HTTP requests and the other one would manage all MySQL traffic, and so on.
